STAR TREK
"The Savage Curtain"

From Wikipedia:

"The Savage Curtain" a third season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, is the antepenultimate series episode, first broadcast on March 7, 1969 and repeated July 1, 1969. It is episode #77, production #77, written by Gene Roddenberry and Arthur Heinemann, based on an original story by Gene Roddenberry, and directed by Herschel Daugherty. It is the last Star Trek episode in which Nichelle Nichols appears.

Overview: Aliens force Kirk and Spock to battle illusory villains.

More here.

Watch it here.

Notes and pics:

* Shatner looks tired.



* Lincoln in space on the bridge view screen. Another Star Trek image seared in my brain since the early 70s. And it's still pretty cool.



* Scotty: "Full dress? Presidential honors? What is this nonsense Mr. Dickerson?"

Dickerson: "I understand President Lincoln is coming aboard."

Scotty: "Are you daft, man?"

Scotty's really on a dialogue tear in this scene.



* Okay, this is pretty fucked up, Lincoln on the transporter, everyone in their dress uniforms.



* You know, this has to be the first impression of Lincoln I ever had, what with seeing it when I was three or four. So this really is Lincoln to me.

* This living rock creature concept is cool, too. Reminds me of "Devil in the Dark."

* I love Kirk's first log entry after coming back from the commercial break. It's essentially along the lines of this is so fucking weird that we have this Lincoln guy here, but man, he really does seem to be Lincoln. And actually, that's what's making this episode worth a damn so far. Weird Lincoln guy in space.

* Love the exchange between Lincoln and Uhura. One of the few explicit references to the fact that she is a person of color in the entire series.



* God, I love Scotty's dress uniform.

* What's with Spock's quip at Scotty in the briefing room?

* This is a pretty good briefing room scene. Very Star Trek, even includes a nice speech from Kirk invoking their five year mission.



* Surak, the founder of the Vulcan way. I always forget about him when I'm thinking about classic Vulcans, you know, the people who established the concept for the franchise. This guy's good, and deserves some credit.



* This rock alien's fucking great.



* I love the introduction of the bad guy team, very comic booky, reminds me of one of those 80s Marvel Secret Wars series.









* I love how the rock creature keeps using theater terminology to refer to their experiment, "our play," "the spectacle."

* Colonel Green is wonderfully sleazy, very James Woods.

* Very Star Trek, watching Kirk fight on the bridge view screen.



* Did I say I love this rock guy? "Does my body heat distress you?" Fucking great.

* You know, for the founder of the Klingon way, Kahless is kind of a whiney pussy.

* Love the weird cut away shots to the rock creature watching "the spectacle." It's like they come out of nowhere.

* The whole Surak peace mission is bizarre. As a Vulcan, he ought to be smart enough to understand the situation, that their opponents might not even possess free will, and that negotiations are in all probability useless. So while his dedication to non-violence is cool, even Gandhi would defend himself if someone started punching him in the face. Maybe Surak has no free will. At any rate, the conversation with Colonel Green is weird, too, kind of stiff. And then all the "Help me, Spock!" stuff. It's all so off-kilter, sort of Brechtian, which is fitting, I suppose, in that this is the rock creatures' "play."

* I love Lincoln taking over and making the plan. Great speech about how he sent 100,000 men to their deaths.

* Nice deep focus shots.



* I love Lincoln crawling on the ground.



* Colonel Green: "Now can you cry like Lincoln?"



* Lincoln with a spear in his back, also seared in my mind since early childhood.



* Nice fight after Lincoln's death, sort of distant and detached, clinical even.

* Ooooh. Cool death Kirk gives Green.



* Great exchange between Kirk and rock guy at the end.



* This one's really pretty great. I hadn't watched it in years, and didn't remember it too terribly fondly, but I had a great time with it this time. Like I said, it's really all about a weird Lincoln guy in space, and it's pretty cool how such a simple idea is able to drive the entire episode. I mean, it's not just some alien crawling on the ground, it's fucking President Lincoln, who may or may not be an alien, crawling on the ground. The episode gets three stars just for that. But the Lincoln weirdness just seems to have a sort of multiplier effect, what with bizarre voyeur shots of a steaming, snapping, Satan-voiced rock alien, strange theatrical flourishes, Ed Wood cheesiness, and on and on. That's what brings it up to four and a half stars. Not perfect, but still pretty damned great.

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